Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) systems are presently being employed by telecommunications companies including the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) to provide advanced subscription services to subscribers. Examples of advanced subscription services include the ability to route a call to a customer-defined location based on the zip code of the calling party; and the ability to enable a customer to restrict or prevent calls to predefined numbers specified by (and under the control of) the customer.
In the present system architecture, the switching network comprises a number of end offices equipped to communicate under the Signaling System 7 (SS7) protocol. In AIN nomenclature, these end offices are termed Signal Switching Points (SSPs). The switching network also includes Signal Transfer Points (STPs), which are packet switching devices implemented to communicate messages between SSPs and Signal Control Points (SCPs). SCPs are commercially available, special purpose computing equipment associated with a predetermined geographic area and including substantial databases identifying those subscribers and the AIN services subscribers have requested (e.g., call waiting, etc.).
When a call is initiated, it is routed to an end office such as an SSP. If the SSP identifies a "trigger" associated with the call (i.e., a prefix identifying the call as one subject to an AIN service subscription by virtue of the calling or receiving subscriber's service contract), it develops a query containing certain information and requesting instruction on processing the call. The query is routed to an STP which, after conducting certain processing steps irrelevant here, forwards the processed query to an appropriate one of a number of SCPs (identified by an identifier in the query) for directions on how to process the call. The SCP addresses its database and replies to the processed query received from the STP, thereby ensuring the call is processed per the subscriber's predefined service requirements.
In the typical architecture, a plurality of SCPs are employed. These SCPs are typically located in two or more locations and assigned to service different subscribers. (In some instances, multiple SCPs have the capability to service the same subscribers thereby providing redundancy in case of failure). The operation of the SCPs are typically managed by one or more network element managers. Network element managers are computers provided by the vendor(s) of the SCPs. Each SCP vendor provides its own network element manager to manage its SCPs. Thus, if a given telecommunications company purchases SCPs from more than one vendor, it will have more than one network element manager. Typically, network element managers from different vendors are not adapted to communicate with one another and operate pursuant to different protocols.
In order to add new subscribers or services to the AIN, or to update the package of existing services for a given subscriber, it is necessary to update the databases of one or more of the SCPs in service. If a given telecommunications company employs SCPs from different vendors, it will be required to process such updates differently depending upon the SCP being addressed. In other words, vendor A's SCPs will have to be addressed differently than vendor B's SCPs. This disparity interjects confusion, delay, and added cost into the service provisioning process.
Some telecommunications companies have sought to address this problem by discarding the network element managers provided by the vendors of the SCPs and substituting one or more of their own, in-house developed, network element managers. Such an approach provides uniformity between network element managers employed by the telecommunications company, but is disadvantageous in that it removes the vendor designed network element managers (which are particularly designed for managing the SCPs with which they are sold) from the system.
As the telecommunications industry has advanced and new user-defined services have become available (e.g., screening calls from user defined numbers, etc.), it has become more and more desirable to provide users with ready access to their subscription service data. Due to the proliferation of personal computers, the internet has become a significant vehicle for such access. However, although the services which permit a user to change its subscription package and/or to modify the parameters of the services within the package via personal computer or touch tone phone are gaining popularity, these services can be confusing to modify because they provide users with little or no information concerning the status of requested service changes until such services are actually implemented by the AIN system. For example, if a user has requested that a call screening service be modified to exclude phone calls from the 312 and the 202 area codes as of the following Monday, until Monday arrives the user typically has no way of knowing what its service package will consist of on that day unless it keeps a written record and/or remembers its instructions to the system. Thus, in this example, if the user decides to make further changes to the subject service prior to Monday, the user may encounter confusion as to the status of the user defined service.